Pardee RAND Student Body Profile

Pardee RAND students in cohort '15

Each year, about 25 new students enroll in Pardee RAND Graduate School. They come from around the world and from the most diverse of educational backgrounds.

Their academic credentials are very strong, but the Admissions Committee doesn't just go by the numbers. The Committee looks for creativity, the ability to think about new issues in new ways. Pardee RAND seeks students with a combination of passion and discipline—the passion to change the world for the better, and the discipline to carry forth the new research that will be needed to do so.

Student Spotlight

Assistant Policy Analyst

Sohaela Amiri is a doctoral candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and assistant policy analyst at the RAND Corporation. Her fields of interest include impact measurement, program evaluation and design, as they relate to strategic communication, digital diplomacy, U.S. soft power,…

Assistant Policy Analyst

David Catt is an assistant policy analyst at RAND and a Ph.D. student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His major fields of interest include water supply, energy resources, environmental legislation, infrastructure finance, science, technology, and innovation policy, and college sports finance.

Assistant Policy Analyst

Benjamin Goirigolzarri is a doctoral candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School and an assistant policy analyst at RAND. His research interests include robust optimization, linear programming and machine learning applied to healthcare policy and military operations.

Assistant Policy Analyst

Emily Haskel is an assistant policy analyst at RAND and a Ph.D. student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research interests include U.S.-China relations, East Asian security issues, cyber security, and international development.

Assistant Policy Analyst

Dung Huynh an assistant policy analyst at RAND and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His research interests include international political economy (with a focus on Asia), the conflict in the South China Sea, and complexity theory and its application to international…

Assistant Policy Analyst

J. Luke Irwin is an assistant policy analyst at RAND and a Ph.D. student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His primary interest is futurism studies viewed through long-term planning and robust decision-making. In particular, he seeks to pursue research in education, population health,…

Assistant Policy Analyst

Kurt Klein is an assistant policy analyst at RAND and a Ph.D. student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His research interests include nuclear security, terrorism, and climate resilience and adaptation.

Assistant Policy Analyst

Felix Knutson is an assistant policy analyst at RAND and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He is a distinguished graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a B.S. in mathematics and a minor in Russian.

Assistant Policy Analyst

Rachel Perera is an assistant policy analyst at RAND and a Ph.D. student at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research interests include poverty, inequality, education, economic mobility, and women's health.

Assistant Policy Analyst

Lindsey Polley is an assistant policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and a Ph.D. candidate at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Her research interests include arms dealing and the black market, (inter)national security, counter terrorism/counter insurgency, military science and warfare,…